Online Space Trading Games

regeneration

Basically think Elite; Im looking for a good, populated and well supported massive online game that revolves around space trading, buying ships, becoming mercenaries, traders etc - as I said, Elite, but online and decent.
Are there any games like that out there? I notice there's X2: the threat lately, but that ain't supposed to be that good.
I'd really like to get into this area of Massive Multi Online gaming, so some pointers to good games would be appreciated.

Mantel

Eve is quite good and the closest thing I've seen to elite in a long while. There used to be trade (from what I've heard) but that kinda got quashed by some market changes so the kinda money ya make on moveing goods is a bit low. From what I've expierienced there are two basic aspects to it, Fight or Mine and to a lesser extent run agent mission (theres the whole building ships and equipment thing but ya need minerals for that!

Its quite well populated, usually 3-4k players on weekdays and it got near to seven thousand (6,840) players at the weekend. The only thing is eve is quite large and it can be hard to get the sense that alot of other people are playing at the same time.

If you have broadband you can some of the videos from -

http://www.eve-online.com/download/videos/game.asp

http://eve.skjalfti.is/video/community/incoming/

to have a look, the mostly show off the fighting side of things. (well mostly pirates

regeneration

Hmmm the reviews weren't too kind about Eve really, and what's the support from the game makers like? Oh and the money of course - how much is the monthly subscription to play this game?

Didn't microsoft release an Elite style game awhile back that's supposedly good?

amp

According to the FAQ it's about 12 dollas a month.

The TICK

Originally posted by regeneration
Didn't microsoft release an Elite style game awhile back that's supposedly good?

Is "Freelancer" what your thinking of by any chance?

regeneration

Could be - what's that like?

Im going to try Eve, cos despite the medeocre reviews on gamer sites, the feedback from players in general seems good. Plus the monthly rate of 10euro is pretty good.

The TICK

Hi again.

for Freelancer I would go here http://forums.jolt.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=702 it's one of the best communities and non-cheat servers for Freelancer. As for EVE I have tied that for a few week's and got really bored with it so unless your planning on spending a LOT of time with it I would'nt bother and the skill training take's real time starting off takes about 15 to 30 mins real time but for skill's from level 4 to level 5 will take 10 day's real time and the rest of your time will be taken up mining, look's nice and full of unkept developer promises....

kurisu

id have to agree i have freelancer and its a great online game and unlike eve there can be hundreds of servers and i believe that for eve you have to pay a subscription which you dont on freelancer, freelancer can also be run offline ,

just a question are there any downloadable copies of elite , online that can be run without requiring me to do some risky things to my hardrive?

kurisu

last used in 2004! arent these things cleaned at all!

Sand

Im puzzled. How did you manage to dig up a 2 year old thread without realising?

steviec

I know this is an old thread but while we're on the topic... why are these types of games always set in space?

I really like the idea and I tried to get into X2 before but at the end of the day I just don't like space combat.

But I was thinking, lets say you have a game like World of Warcraft, why not give it a more complex economy, each town having different supply and demand of different commodities, eliminate easy/safe travel between towns by making it PVP everywhere and having no taxis/teleports, allow players to steal from eachother, and allow players to pay for bodyguards/horses/carriages/vehicles etc. and you'd basically end up with a land based version of one of these games which I'd find far more interesting.

I was just taking WoW as an example, there's no reason it would have to be either online or a fantasy type world, although a modern day setting wouldn't really work for many reasons. Maybe such a game exists already and I don't know about it.

Sand

Ultima Online was what you were looking for. Players dont like being ganked by 15 gate/road camping 12 year olds. Even EVE has safe-ish empire space.

KdjaCL

Someone make Serenity ONline MMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMRPG!


kdjac

Mad Mike

Eve has a 14 day free trial that you can get here:

https://secure.eve-online.com/ft/?aid=100972&nogreet=1

The game client is a 500MB download.

I am currently playing the 14 day free trial I have just finished the tutorial over the weekend and I have to say I love the game so far. If you liked Elite you will probably love EVE. I think a lot of the criticism arose from the fact that the game has huge depth and an overwhelming array of options. Unkind commentators have called the game Excel in space because there are so many tables and charts (they even give you a handy calculator in game). But if you have the right type of nerdy personality this game might really hit the spot. The impression I get after a few days play is that you can play just about anyway you want - trader, miner, corporation flunkie, bounty hunter, pirate, robber etc - oh and it looks beautiful. The tutorial is very good and highly recommended.